


From Her Hands A Spill of Blood (how many drops to make it flood?)

by Kila9Nishika



Series: Remembering Narnia [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF!Lucy, Beware for blood, Beware the Narnians, Narnia was not all easy, Super!Revenge becomes a moral tale, history in Narnia that turned into a legend, lots of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 15:09:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kila9Nishika/pseuds/Kila9Nishika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Ware the gold-queen<br/>‘Ware the girl-queen<br/>‘Ware the laughing, skirts-awhirl queen<br/>From her hands a spill of blood<br/>How many drops to make it flood?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the year 1007 QI, the Telmarines learn that gold is a frightening color, especially when associated with lions and girls - </p>
<p>This is the story that Edmund tells Caspian in "More Dangerous Than Silver" - from the Telmarine point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Her Hands A Spill of Blood (how many drops to make it flood?)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the SAME STORY that Edmund calls "a tale for indoors." It is simply from the Telmarine perspective, and filtered a bit through a handful of generations. This version would have been told about 500 years after the Pevensies first vanished from Narnia.
> 
>  
> 
> Sendar is the richest duchy in Telmar. (My invention, use it if you wish.)

_Laughing girl-queen_

_Golden girl-queen_

_Shining, valiant, skirts-awhirl queen._

Tales of the Golden Queen were told late at night, only after the younger children were asleep.  By the time of Caspian VI and Caspian VII, historians had labeled it a cautionary tale – not historically accurate, but to warn of the dangers of meddling.

The Golden Queen was also sometimes called the Queen Flame.  The tale said that she was the youngest of her family.  Her siblings were titled by the tale: Queen Night, or, the Midnight Queen, King Sunbright, and King Justice.

The tale told of one Rhaza V, Duke of Sendar, second son of the king of Telmar.  As with many men in his era, he put forth his suit to the great Queen Night, who was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Swiftly, his suit was rejected, for the Queen Night would not leave her home.

Furious, Rhaza sent forth his men as bandits, to harry the southwestern border of the Four-fold Land. 

Time and time again, his attempts at revenge were easily foiled, and in the third year after his rejection, the King Justice came to negotiate with Rhaza.

For two months, negotiations swung back and forth, until Rhaza had decided it was enough.  In a clever plot, Rhaza claimed the negotiations settled, but sent his men to follow the King Justice back home.

When spring again rolled around, Rhaza sent his false bandits to harry the border, and in due course, the King  Justice came to settle the border.

Hidden behind the false bandits, however, were the true warriors of Sendar.  When the King Justice rode out at the front of his barbaric troops, Rhaza’s men sprung the ambush. 

They took the King Justice captive, and brought him to Rhazan, the capital city of Sendar.

To send a message to those who had offended him, Rhaza sent the signet ring of the King Justice back to the Four-fold Land.

Only eight days after he had been captured, the King Justice attempted to break free.

He got so far as halfway to the border before Sendar’s warriors recaptured him.

As a warning, Rhaza ordered the King Justice’s glove pinned to the walls of Rhazan.

Rhaza was secure – the King Sunbright was battling giants beyond the Northern Wastes.  There was no one to “rescue” the King Justice.

Word came from a border county that the patrols had vanished.

One month in, and a terrified page stumbled in from the border county.  His report was dire.

Every soul on the border had been killed.  The villages ran with blood, and the fortress was permanently stained with the crimson rivers.

Every warrior on the border, all five hundred of them, every one of them was dead.

The pageboy said that the killer was a young knight with golden hair, who supposedly _glowed_ like a flame.

Rhaza was a bit worried – one survivor out of five hundred in a fortress – he guessed that an army must have crossed the border without notice.

Rhaza rallied his troops to Rhazan, to ensure his personal safety and the security of his prisoner.  He even commissioned the aid of witches, to guard against possible magics.

On the forty-second day since his capture of the King Justice, Rhaza was woken in the night by a commotion – someone had broken into the city – but not the army he had expected.

The invasion was a youth, clad in blood-soaked chain and leathers.

Worried by the bloody swath that the youth had cut through the city, Rhaza called for his witches.

Reassured, Rhaza stood firmly behind them as they cast their first spells.  These were army-killers, spells that had wiped whole towns off of the map.

As the spells approached, the youth calmly removed the heads of the two nearest soldiers, sending blood in all directions.

The youth’s head turned, and silver-blue eyes abruptly grew the deep blue color of the heart of a flame.

Golden light _blazed_ from the youth, sending phantom flames across the blood-drenched mail.

_“Where is he?”_

The voice was the voice of a thousand bells – the roar of lions behind the scream of tortured creation born of tormented destruction.

Blood ran down the youth’s face like tears.  Without stopping ot even consider the spells, the youth moved forward and gutted the witches.  Blood sprayed, and Rhaza backed towards a wall.  His fear spoke for him.

“He is in the dungeons, dying of the rot!”

Blue eyes brightened to the nearly white of sword-melting heat.

_“If he dies…you never shall.”_

The words were spoken evenly, but were backed with a mad flame that threatened eternal agony.

Rhaza shivered, and plastered himself to a wall while the youth calmly soaked the courtyard with blood.

A slamming door stopped the youth, and Rhaza bit back a shout of fury.  His own bastard son, Taran, had freed the prisoner.

_“Just…”_ breathed the youth.  As smoothly as the swords had spread blood and goore, the youth drew out a tiny vial, and tipped it to the prisoner’s lips.

As the youth caught the fainting King Justice, Rhaza looked from the bloody visage cloaked in gold to the bloody visage cloaked in shadows, and saw resemblance.

“What _are_ you?” Rhaza breathed, terror loosening his tongue like wine as the youth easily commanded Taran to take the King Justice from the city.

The youth smiled lazily, a lion’s grin, and Rhaza froze in sheer and utter fright.

_“I am the Valiant, the Lion’s Chosen.  I am Aslan’s Flame, the Lioness of the North – and the death of those who would harm Aslan’s Chosen.”_

Rhaza had but a moment to digest this – that the youth was a _girl_ – the Queen Flame, the Golden Queen – indeed, he could see the gold –

And then hot blood re-soaked her mail and leathers –

Blood which had once run in the veins of Rhaza V of Sendar.

The city of Rhazan ran with blood, and lit with flame.  By morning’s light, only a blood-soaked ruin remained of Telmar’s proudest duchy.

Taran survived, and would father the next king of Telmar, but he was forever haunted by the bloody massacre of Sendar.

The people of Telmar would remember the sweet smile and golden hair of the Bright Avenger.  They would remember he deadly dance and mad laughter with two voices.

Never could a survivor look upon gold without remembering the Golden Queen, who had cut through Sendar in search of her brother.

When King Tarian I of Telmar took the throne in 1035, gold coinage was officially ended in Telmar – but it had fallen out of use years before.

For gold would forever be stained with blood.

_‘Ware the gold-queen_

_‘Ware the girl-queen_

_‘Ware the laughing, skirts-awhirl queen_

_From her hands a spill of blood_

_How many drops to make it flood?_

**Author's Note:**

> As with "More Dangerous Than Silver," all inspirations still apply. See "More Dangerous Than Silver" for the two fics by Lirenel which inspired these two fics. The poem quoted in this story is the poem that can be found in the second chapter of "More Dangerous Than Silver."


End file.
